1 And when I came to you brothers, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.

2 For I determined to think nothing among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.

4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: [Paul spoke words which were uttered by the Spirit within Him, that is the word of faith that he preached.]

5 So that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. [To have faith in the power of God, you must have that power revealed to you, shown to you, so that you experience and taste the power of the world to come. Faith must be revealed to a man by Jesus himself .]

6 However we speak wisdom in those who are perfect;1 yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this world who come to nothing.

7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world to our glory;

8 Which none of the rulers of this world knew. For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

2Man's eye has not seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, the things that God has prepared for those who love him; but God has revealed them to us by his spirit. The Spirit of God reveals to us, (by revelation), what God has prepared for those who love him. There is no other way to know except by revelation. So the things of God are not known, but as they are revealed by his spirit; and that which may be known of God is revealed in them; for God has shown it to them. Rom 1:19. So God reveals his secrets and mysteries inside a man, in a man's heart, where you hear and see the mysteries revealed. True Christianity is an inward experience; but all the outward reading, outward praying, outward rituals, outward ceremonies, outward talking, and outward singing, yields nothing of the knowledge of God.

The words you speak must be heard from the Spirit in the same moment before you speak, not words read or even words you previously heard a month ago, or a week ago, or an hour ago. Realize, you will be tempted by the enemy many times to preach before you can hear so well as to speak only words heard at that moment for there are many voices; beware of false prophets; and beware of becoming a false prophet yourself, speaking from your carnal mind's memory about Jesus or God. The voice of the opposition can be indistinguishable from the voice of the Lord. The enemy will pretend to be the Lord, always tempting you to do something wrong that you want to do, or tempting you to do something that you have been told not to do. When the enemy succeeds in tempting you, then the messages you receive become 90% plus from the enemy, with the Lord only gently and very infrequently repeating His warnings and orders that are contrary to what you are doing; but because you have so many more messages from the enemy encouraging you to continue down the wrong path, it is very easy to think the Lord's messages are the enemy's. The enemy also speaks with messages that are obviously not from the Lord, but which criticize or complain about what you are doing wrong, further convincing you that you are right.

Usually one is convinced by the enemy that they are serving the Lord in whatever they are tempted to do before they have been sufficiently changed to properly serve Him. Think about the millions of ministers and teachers in Babylon who are teaching flagrant doctrinal errors all the while hearing messages, which they think are from the Lord, but which are guiding them and their listeners down the path to destruction. Suppose you think you have been given a gift of healing, a gift of miracles, the authority to teach, etc., but you are not able to speak words from His Spirit that you hear immediately before speaking. Now you perform your deed for the Lord, but the only words you have are from your carnal mind; your deed would not serve the Lord because your words would be from the nature of death and could not properly reach the hearts of your listeners. Until your carnal mind has been sufficiently destroyed so that you only have words from the Spirit, (only words from the Spirit), that you hear immediately before speaking, you are not fit to serve the Lord doing anything that requires words of explanation or credit to Him; that is a simple test, which you can use to defend yourself from being tempted before you are properly equipped to serve. Remember the teaching by the Word of the Lord within: "When you speak words from yourself, it doesn't matter what you say; you say them with the wrong spirit, and they don't reach the heart of your listeners." So suppose you are told go to someone and warn them about what they are doing; unless when you arrive, you are sufficiently in His Spirit, (as George Fox wrote about speaking a previous teaching: "be sure the light is up"), to hear the exact and only words to speak, even repeating words from Him that you have heard in the past will be spoken with the wrong spirit; don't do it.

I have asked the Lord why He is not more firm in correcting those of us who have been deceived and are traveling down a wrong path; the answer I received was: "the cure is worse than the disease." Apparently we are left to slowly discover our own mistakes with only His very gentle and infrequent reminders because His firm correction would be more harmful to our eventual progress. If you have been deceived and gone the wrong way for some time, it is very easy to become bitter or offended that you were not corrected; don't. Remember the Lord is pure, perfect, kind, gentle, wise, and love Himself; and everything He does or doesn't do is to your ultimate benefit. If He firmly corrected us, either our confidence would suffer too serious a blow, or perhaps we would only fall again to a more subtle scheme to tempt us in the future.

There comes a time when we will be able to accurately distinguish between the voice of the Lord and the voice of the enemy; until then be extra careful about doing anything to serve the Lord.